


Keeping A Vow

by Duncan



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Blood Loss, F/M, Gun Violence, M/M, spoilers for episode 1 of season 4
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-02
Updated: 2017-11-28
Packaged: 2018-09-14 07:05:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9167575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Duncan/pseuds/Duncan
Summary: Sherlock could calculate and figure things out that other people couldn't. He could stop them, fix people's mistakes, protect people, and he had broken so many vows in his life that he had assured himself he would absolutely would not break this one. The vow wouldn't break. He assured it.Sherlock is a liar.





	1. Illusion

**Author's Note:**

> a late christmas present for my friend but also an incredibly early birthday present for the same friend ,,, we're both shook after this episode ,,, help us

Sherlock had been shot multiple times before. He'd been tortured, screamed at, yelled at, attacked, near enough drowned. He'd considered not fighting it in the end; but John flashed into his memory and he fought. He lived. He didn't feel well, after learning what he did, but he lived. The vow could be kept.

Sherlock could calculate and figure things out that other people couldn't. He could stop them, fix people's mistakes, protect people, and he had broken so many vows in his life that he had assured himself he would absolutely would not break this one. The vow wouldn't break. He assured it.

Sherlock is a liar.

The second _she_  fired the gun, he was a liar.

A push, and blonde hair.

A loud, harsh thud.

Sherlock might have thought it was his own heart at this point, and everything became loud, he was aware of his breathing, every movement made. He looked down, and granted there wasn't a lot of blood to see, but when he saw even a speck of it at first, he shuddered and shut his eyes.

His hands come up to his face, his shoulders shake and even though he isn't crying, he's dangerously close to it and he feels nauseous, like he might throw up at any second. He squeezes his eyes shot, breathing harder and harder by the second. Mary was shot. John wasn't here. He'd made a vow and John was going to hate him and Mary was dead and the baby...

* * *

When his eyes open again, the gun is facing him. Immediately, he looks down. Mary isn't there. He looks to his side. Mary is looking at him, and she looks concerned. She doesn't understand why he looks like he's seen a ghost, because she's been here the entire time and she knows that Sherlock knows and then, all of a sudden, he pushes forward towards the gun.

"Sherlock!"

John's arrival is swift, to say the least, but it unsettles the woman with the gun, and as Sherlock grabs her wrist the gun goes off, hits him in a flash of white and he does nothing fall, the area could bleed out quick but he would not die, not as quickly as Mary had in his -- what was it? A vision?

He ignores the pain, grabs at her wrists and wrestles the gun from her, and John is yelling something whilst Mary seems to already be on the phone for ... something, and Greg is --- he's yelling too. Why is everything getting louder? It's making him feel sick, and he wants it to stop but how can he stop them when he can't even speak?

The gun is in his hands now. The police officers take that as a sign to go in and take the woman, and they do, and Sherlock doesn't move the entire time. He's on his knees. There's blood inching down his shirt and it feels thick and warm, and as he looks over his shoulder he can see John coming towards him, Mary in tow. He lets himself lower to the ground. 

Sherlock breathes in sharply. It hurts now that the adrenaline wore off, but he'll live. He looks at Mary, and rather than going for John's hand he grasps at Mary's. It seems to be logical anyways, because not only does John's hands take the mission of removing his shirt to assess the bullet wound in his shoulder itself, Mary looks like she wanted to say something and doing something like this whilst talking wasn't going to work, he imagines. They must have figured it out or known their place to perceive and do what they wanted.

He took a breath. Struggled for it.

Sherlock couldn't breathe.

"Is the bullet still in there?"

"The blood would have gone through to the back. It doesn't look like it passed through."

Sherlock shuts his eyes.

John practically pries them open.

Or at least, he **thought** he had. He'd opened them back by himself. Why couldn't he see what was happening? His mind was all over the place, becoming darker and darker and just as he's about to give in --- Moriarty's voice suddenly resounds in his head.

_"John... Mary... They're both going to be in danger, Sherlock. Mary just a little bit more than John now, hm? The little girl, too..."_

Sherlock breathes harder. He can't stay awake. He can hear Mary trying to distract him, to tell him about Rosamund, but Sherlock already knows and he can think back to how he'd played with the rattle and trying to keep her holding it but it had ended with it being thrown back in his face, and though he'd just scolded her lightly on it, it still made him smile. She would be safe. Rosamund had John and Mary. Sherlock was just ...  _Sherlock_.

He felt John's hand on his other shoulder, heard him speaking but the words were jumbled and Sherlock didn't make an effort to ask for him to repeat what he'd said. He would only make it harder for himself, because he'd fight to focus and at the moment, his mind was clouded and all he wanted to do was sleep... Sherlock makes the effort, opens his eyes for a second, just a little bit.

If he dies, he wants them to know he'd kept his vow. He didn't want them to forget his vow.

He'd done his best.

"I had... a vision of you ... going forward in front of that gun, Mary. I didn't know if you were going to jump in front of it ... this time ... but I watched you _die_ and --- and John looked at me with so much **hate** , I --- I figured I might just ... have deserved it instead ... but you can't do much when the woman only has one bullet, can you?"

Mary looks shocked, but she smiles. She looks like she wants to tell him he's stupid, but, she doesn't. She looks more overwhelmed than upset, like she had been planning to do what he'd imagined. 

Instead, she shakes her head. "So you stopped me from doing it, then. You went in, knowing she would shoot and you didn't even care?"

Sherlock smiles. "It could have been worse."

Mary scoffs. Her hand reaches up to brush his curls away from his eyes.

John looks like he's about to cry. He feels a wave of pain, and he closes his eyes and he grunts, breathing hard once again. He's sweating, he knows he is, and his hands are shaking a little ( he's _cold_ , and it's the most unpleasant feeling he's ever felt in his entire  **life** ) as he grasps even tighter to Mary's hand. His throat feels like it's closing up and his eyes are stinging, and when he opens his eyes he comes to the realisation he's ... crying.

It hurts more than when he'd fallen over and Mycroft had told him to get up by himself, to stop crying and hurry up or they would not make it on time to school.

"John.. Don't be upset." His breath hitches. Vision is going dark around the edges. He can't seem to identify whose who anymore. The grey and the blonde seem to bleed into each other. "Mary...." He tries, and he barely notices that he had let go of Mary's hand until it hits her leg on its way down. Mary seems too focused on his face, his quickly closing eyes. "Mary... John... Please, be safe. Mycroft will help you.. He'll protect you.. and Ros--..."

He doesn't finish his sentence.

 


	2. Worried Sick

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock is in hospital after surgery. John thinks about him. Mary comforts.

"John, pacing isn't going to help.."

The man had been on his feet for hours, walking up and down the sterilised halls, the walls painted a boring white. He looks like he's seen death itself, and perhaps he did. Mary is worried sick too, but she can't pace. Pacing makes her worry more, and if she was worrying more than she already did, she was almost certain that she would end up in a hospital bed.

John comes back. He sets himself down beside her, and takes her hand in his. His eyes are red, a reflection of herself, and he looks like he might lose his mind with the worry that was plaguing him. Mary reached out, and took hold of his hand.

"He'll be okay. He's stronger than a bullet, John... He won't die."

John sighs, and squeezes her hand.

"You're right. He won't die from something like this. It's happened before... And in a much more vital place, for that matter.. I just don't want him to go through it again. It's not... I wasn't there for him before."

"Then be here for him this time."

"He's... but what about.."

"I can take care of her, John. Don't worry so much. We can stay with him at 221B, John. There'll be enough space for all of us. Besides, Sherlock seems fairly happy spending time with Rosamund. After this, too … it might be a good thing to offer whatever distractions we have.”

John ran his hands through his hair, and exhaled heavily. Sherlock was far too reckless, and in the entire time that John had the privilege of being his _friend_ , he’d had to witness many things he’d once witnessed long ago back when he was serving the country, and he wasn’t sure how much more of it he could handle. Sherlock had been at gun point, both from strangers and from his own **wife’s** hands, he’d vowed to protect the both of them and their child, and …

_I kept my promise._

His throat tightens. He looks at Mary, and he feels everything break in the second she looks back at him. Her arms wind around him, pull him closer, and she whispers into his ear constantly to tell him that it’s okay, that Sherlock will be okay, that there’s no chance that this will break him. She’s said it all before, and for as long as John would allow her to speak, to let her be the one to offer a shoulder to cry on, to give him a reason to carry on living, she would be the one to comfort him.

She had no doubts that Sherlock would, too.

Awkward, smart, a general asshole, but also the best choice for a best man, a grandfather to Rosie… Sherlock Holmes was all of them.

John Watson, fragile under the face of death, yet persistent and somehow tolerant of behaviour around himself. When Sherlock had nearly overdosed, John had been the one to get him the help. John Watson was Sherlock’s _savior_ in Mary’s eyes, and though Sherlock never seemed to acknowledge it, there was definitely some awareness in his eyes. He didn’t see John, he saw _hope_. He saw someone to depend on, even if he refused it.

Mary could see that.

* * *

They’d fallen asleep next to each other, remaining that way for a couple of hours.

John woke first.

He looked at his watch, and sighed. He was shocked that none of the doctors passing through had awoken them to alert the two of them of the fact that visiting hours were most definitely **over** by now. He tilts his head, looks at Mary. She looks exhausted, so he doesn’t wake her. John turns to look at the door they’d been staring at for hours before, waiting for some sort of news.

News of whether or not Sherlock would pull through.

* * *

The ambulance had not arrived yet.

It seemed like Mycroft had a solid grasp of keeping the police officers at bay, keeping Lestrade back and telling them that he had **control** over the situation, that an ambulance was coming and that they should just go and handle the situation with the woman who shot Sherlock. Albeit reluctantly, they did as Mycroft commanded. Even Lestrade had left, not without sending Sherlock a quick look. He was awake and conscious, and talking to Mary and John. They could handle it, he figured.

He was wrong.

The second he left, Sherlock had fallen unconscious.

John was frantic, though he did his best not to show it in front of his wife. His hand lingered by his forehead, feeling at it ( _why_ —why did everyone around him have to **suffer**?) and brushing his hair back again. It fell to his neck, two fingers pressing to his pulse and seeking out a strong beat. It was weak, far weaker than it should be. John took in a shuddered breath and closed his eyes.

_Stop it, Sherlock. Stop being **dead.**_

The memory of Sherlock on the ground when he’d lied to him about his suicide, when he’d faked it in order to keep him safe flashed into his mind. Though this time, his eyes were closed. There was no blood on his face, only on his shirt and underneath. If John had been lying to himself, if this had been in any other situation, he would look as if he were asleep.

But John wasn’t stupid, and he could not imagine this was something it wasn’t. Sherlock was **dying** , and John could do nothing but watch as he bled out, slowly, slowly falling into darkness and being unable to take himself away from it. John wasn’t sure what to do anymore. He’d distracted himself with the ambulance initially, but now he was faced with the situation of _what if his best friend really **did** die_?

He recalled Sherlock looking at him, only moments ago. Trying desperately to stay awake, to talk to the both of them and to assure them of his survival through this. John had observed, and his eyes had been closing so much more frequently until … until they stopped opening, until his eyes stopped fluttering beneath his eyelid.

_Sherlock, for me. Don’t ... be... dead. Would you do ...?_

_Just for me, just stop it._

_Stop this._

“The ambulance is here, John.”

A distant voice called to him, and he felt himself being moved away once more from Sherlock.

* * *

“John?”

He tenses, and looks to his side. Mary is holding her hand out. He looks in front of them. The nurse is there.

John swallows hard.

“You’re here for …” she pauses to look at a file, and looks over the edge of it. “Mr Holmes, yes?”

Both John and Mary nod. The nurse sighs, and sets the file down to her side before she gestures for them to walk into the room they’d moved Sherlock to. In the time she took leading them, she spoke to them to inform them of what damage he’d sustained. John silently prayed, like Mary, that it wouldn’t be bad.

“Mr Holmes… is lucky. We had to take quite a lot of time on stabilizing him upon arrival, but he made it through the hardest part… the blood loss quite substantial, we had to perform multiple transfusions just to get him through the surgery and the removal of the bullet… he is alive. He will recover. I assume that this is the most important thing you would like to hear. We can’t go into detail over his injuries, as his older brother has told us that we cannot reveal too much about it...”

John looked a little agitated by that, and he would have said something, but he considered Sherlock’s wellbeing and decided against it. He would need to see him before he judged anything. Taking a deep breath, he looked forward. Sherlock was waiting either way, so he wasn’t saying anything. Sherlock needed him and Mary.

* * *

“John..”

His eyes opened after a few moments.

Sherlock looked around blearily, and then closed his eyes again.

“Mary…”

He fell asleep again in seconds.

The door opened.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long!!! gah. 
> 
> Been in a writing funk, but I'm back with a 1000 word chapter lol. Last chapter coming shortly!


	3. Chapter will be up very soon!

Hello everyone !!!

I'm working on the final chapter, at last.

It is very close to being finished. I apologize for lack of updates since I have been super duper busy with college, with work, with my health.

I will be getting rid of this author note when the final chapter is ready.

Thank you for holding on and keeping hope of an update. I love you all!

~ Duncan

**Author's Note:**

> this is obviously gonna be in three parts because i'm trying to spread them out evenly so it doesn't seem too pushed together ye get me ??? thanks for reading the 1st part !!!


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